***Major Spoiler Alert***
This is an excellent piece and a resource for you to engage with young people about Hunger Games from your friends at Immerse.
Prim in Dystopia
By: Clint Schnekloth
Prim dies. This is where Suzanne Collins finally and irrevocably tears to shreds whatever tattered rag of a covenant she has with readers-that at least somehow, somewhere, something truly good can survive in this twisted, dystopian world. By the time readers make their way to Mockingjay, the third volume in the series, hopes are long gone that anyone might thrive or find redemption. Cinna lives on only in clothing designs. Peeta is shattered and no longer pure. Gale is busy mimicking the murderous tactics of the Capitol. Whole districts are fire-bombed.
But, until the very last, Collins offers the (slim) possibility that Katniss' innocent and lovely sister (with the ever un-tucked shirts and braided hair) might at least survive. And then in a final moment-reminiscent as it sadly is of the Massacre of the Innocents commemorated in Christian tradition-Prim herself is blown to bits by exploding parachutes dropped in to slaughter hundreds of caged children that she as a medic attempts to assist. Her death is pointless, gross and wrong-and there is never even any clarity as to the guilty party. Everyone is at fault. Everyone kills Prim. Even her own sister.
There are many ways to discuss the books and the first movie, but if we cannot in horror and shame keep our hearts focused on this naked fact-Prim dies-then nothing else about the novels, in all of their nihilism, will make any kind of sense; if one can make sense of nihilism.
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